I was fascinated to glean from the Andy Wood video that he never seem to practice with a metronome- just practing Brent Mason licks seemed to do the trick (which to be fair probably takes 1000 Gladwell hours to do)! Terry Syryk however seemed to spend countless hours next to the tick tock. So how do you find you get the most bang for your buck?
1 Like
I see you are a Masters in Mechanics Member. Iâd like to suggest you to watch the Noa Kageyama interview. (If I remember correctly, I got most insight from 8th clip or something from the second half of the clips list.) Really awesome interview! Worth seeing it and taking some notes 
2 Likes
I donât explicitly practice with a metronome either. If you think about it, the existence of the metronome has nothing to do with anything. Itâs just an external tool to keep track of whatâs going on; it has no relation to speed development in and of itself.
Proper speed is developed through the repetition of âcorrectâ, efficient motions that over time become smoother and smoother, and consequently faster and faster.
4 Likes
I myself have made huge improvements over the last month so I feel my experience is quite relevant. Having been playing for 20 years and really trying everything I could do play fast shred licks but always falling short I tried Troyâs most recent suggestion. Play fast and experiment. It has made an unbelievable improvement over the last month. I always tried slow practice, metronome practice. Repeating licks and scale pattern. Now I have played the Yngwie 6s lick as fast as I can then put the guitar down after 4 Bars of the lick. Wait 15 seconds pickup and go again. It seems when you try and play as fast as you can your body streamline the movements to the most efficient and natural movements. When I played slowly I always picked to deep and didnât notice as I was playing slowly. When I sped up the extra resistance of deep picking ment the pick jumped about and was impossible to maintain a smooth picking motion. Now only playing fast has forced my pick to just skim the strings and has transformed my picking dramatically. I am now working on 2WPS licks that were way beyond my skills a few months ago.
Play fast, no metronome and feel for a smooth motion. Play Yngwie 6 or 2WPS chunk for 4bars then set guitar down. Rinse, repeat, shred!!! 
5 Likes
Thatâs awesome thanks for the reply. I too have been playing for a few decades and itâs great to experiment with changing my technique. Since youâre in a similar boat, did you find a radical departure in mechanics from how you had been playing was responsible for achieving greater speed/accuracy? Or was it mostly the quality of the focused intervallic practice.
Thanks again!
1 Like
This is what I had recommended you do in that thread and I am glad to see it working. Volume is a huge component of speed.
John Taylor has a video on this concept of volume:
An old email exchange I had with Troy about two years ago on the subject:
Whenever you practice with speed in mind, you absolutely must have a concrete understanding of the number of times you will repeat a phrase. In other words, you cannot sit for 10 minutes straight, repeat an exercise, and expect to play it fast. You will plateau at some point, most commonly at 130 BPM 16th notes. This sort of haphazard approach is disastrous for building virtuoso technique.
- Pick a lick.
- Know exactly how many times you plan on repeating it and have a goal tempo.
- Have an example of someone playing it at the goal speed so that you know it is humanly possible. Youâll have proof of concept that you too can play it fast. This can be a recording or video.
- Be absolutely certain the notes you are playing and the techniques (pickstrokes, etc.) are identical to the way it is played. The more advanced the lick, the more costly any differentiating technical choices will be, potentially costing you speed and forcing you to plateau.
Iâd recommended using Troyâs videos for the various licks from the seminars. Not only are the licks extremely useful across a wide variety of genres, but you can see him playing it and you know it is possible. In terms of speed, Troy =/= god, John Petrucci =/= god, Guthrie Govan =/= god, etc. These are all mortal beings and you can be just as fast as any of them provided you practice sensibly and put in the hours.
Remember this powerful statement, itâs a paraphrase from a guitarist I used to follow:
"If any virtuoso practiced the way you did, they wouldnât be able to do it either."
7 Likes
Everyone is different of course. But I spend most of my time practicing at a moderate pace⌠around 130 - 160 bpm 16th notes. Itâs sorta a cleanup process.
I spend just a small amount of time âburstingâ to full speed. But the bursting is very important⌠because it helps muscles âfeelâ what itâs like at high speed.
I also almost never use a metronome⌠but when I do⌠I drink Dos Equis.
1 Like
Hi @Happidural , I dont think a radical departure was what did it for me just paying attention to try and feel the pick skim the strings. Firstly I watched the pickslanting primer video and trialled all the motions. I didnât feel any of them stood out as easy so I went with DWPS as that is what I originally started with. Looking at my initial videos the pick did not move consistently and I feel I was wandering between wrist, forearm rotation and then also elbow when I tried the âplay relaxedâ method. The big change was when Troy said just go as fast as you can and then when it feels like a smooth pick attack then stop. Put the guitar down and try and replicate the smooth fast picking on one string. Once you feel the smoothness you can keep repeating for a couple of weeks and then it seems to just click.
I definitely think playing slow is now the wrong way to practise. If you are learning a new fingering and lick then yes, play slow to get the lick under your fingers. But to learn a picking motion you need the speed and your bodyâs tendency to close in on efficiency. This closing in on efficiency, I now feel, can only be performed at speed.
4 Likes
Hi @guitarenthusiast, yes thanks very much for your advise on my technique post. Your advice along with the other forum members has made a huge difference in my playing and I really appreciate all the good advice and different points of view on this forum.
You guys rock!
1 Like
You should post a video update in that thread. It would be cool to see the difference youâve achieved.
1 Like
@weealf, I like your phrase, âthe bodyâs tendency to close in on efficiency.â An (imperfect) analogy to this might be in long distance running, where in addition to all the long, slow distance training, marathoners can also do âstrides,â which are untimed workouts of basically 100 meter repeats at 90+% intensity. From what I understand, the concept there is the same: At higher intensity/speed the body might make mechanical adaptations that it wonât at lower intensities. In other words, in order to learn to run faster you have to just run faster.
2 Likes